Memory Layne
by TiredOfTomorrow
Summary: As their son prepares for his first semester at Beacon, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long discovers some mementos from their own time at Beacon. [Bumbleby Oneshot, Post-Canon AU]


"Ow!" Olive yelped after he felt a sharp, stabbing pain on his tail. Olive quickly turned around and found that one of the thousands of cardboard boxes piled high in the attic had fallen down and landed square on Olive's tail - right where it hurt the most.

"Stupid box," Olive muttered before pulling his tail out from under the box. Luckily, whatever was in this box wasn't too heavy, but Olive knew that his long, scruffy tail was going to be sore for the next few days.

"What was that?" a muffled voice called from below.

"Nothin', Ma!" Olive called back towards the stairway leading up to the attic. The last thing he needed was for her to come up and start chastising him for being a klutz, on top of everything else.

"Have you found it yet?" the voice called from below.

"No, not yet!" Olive hollered back.

"Well, hurry up! Your grandfather's gonna be here in 30 minutes, you better be all ready and packed for Beacon, mister!" the voice demanded underneath.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Olive yelled as his reply. Greeted by silence, Olive was happy to finally be left alone to himself again, so he can focus on looking.

The attic was full of all kinds of stuff hoarded over the years, but somewhere in here was a box full of leftover school supplies Olive never got to use in Signal. His parents demanded that he use those leftover notebooks and pencils for when he started at Beacon rather than just buying new supplies, because, according to them, "money doesn't grow on trees," and it'll be a good way for him to learn to be frugal. Of course, Olive was starting to think that maybe the extra money spent on school supplies would be worth it, if it meant he didn't have to buried under ancient cardboard boxes and breathing in the musty, asbestos-filled air in the attic.

Olive fixed his dark-brown hair to the side as he continued to peer around in the attic for the supplies. He spotted a tower of boxes in the far corner he didn't investigate yet - surely the supplies had to be there. Olive trudged over to the boxes and lifted the top box off of the stack of boxes, only to be greeted by the sound of tumbling cardboard. Before he could even see where the sound was coming from, Olive saw a tower of cardboard boxes crashing down towards him. Olive strafed out of the path of the falling cardboard tower just in time to watch it crash onto the ground with a deafening _thud._

"Aw, c'mon!" Olive muttered to himself.

Olive then set the cardboard box he was carrying down, and walked over to the boxes to try to assess the damage. In the corner of his eye, a golden tint caught his attention. Olive turned his gaze towards it, and his jaw nearly dropped at what he saw.

Was that an Ember Celica gauntlet that just rolled out of one of the boxes?

Olive bent down and picked it up in his hands. The weapon had some dust on it and some rust buildup near the edges, but still retained most of it's golden, gleaming finish. The gauntlet felt much heavier in his hands than he could have imagined.

"Hey, what the heck are you doing up here?" a voice called out behind him. "I swear, Olive, if you broke another box of my mugs, I'm-Hey, don't touch that!"

Before Olive could respond, Yang had barreled towards Olive and snatched the gauntlet out of his hands. At nearly 40, Yang Xiao Long was starting to show a bit of her age, some streaks of grey popping up in her golden mane, but she still moved at a frighteningly fast speed, second only to her sister Ruby.

"Where did you get this, Olive?" Yang asked, a look of pure concern plastered on her face.

"I-I don't know, some boxes fell, and then I saw this on the ground-"

Before Olive could finish his response, Yang clicked a button on the side of the gauntlet, causing compartments on the exterior of the weapon to pop out.

"Oh, thank goodness," Yang said. "It wasn't loaded."

Yang then turned to Olive.

"Do you know how much damage you could've caused if this was loaded?" Yang scolded. "This isn't just some toy. Where did you get this from?"

"Look, Yang, I'm sorry," Olive pleaded. "I swear, I found it on the ground. I only had it in my hands for a second before you came up."

Yang sighed, then set Ember Celica down, and then put her right hand on Olive's shoulder.

"Well, at least you're safe," Yang said. "Now, let's clean up this mess you made-hey, what's this?"

Yang bent over and flipped the box that Ember Celica seemingly rolled out of into an upright position. The box was labeled "Beacon," scrawled out on the side with permanent marker.

"No way," Yang whispered as she reached into the box and pulled out a dusty, leather-bound old book. At the same time, Olive could hear footsteps trudging up the wooden, creaky staircase to the attic.

"Olive, what's taking so long?" a soft voice called out from the staircase. "Didn't Yang tell you that your grandfather is on his way in 15 minutes-"

There was an audible gasp, and both Olive and Yang turned to see Blake, a look of shock on her eyes, and her cat ears standing straight up.

"Is that what I think it is?" Blake stammered.

"Blake, come here," Yang said, "Look at all this!"

Blake shook herself out of her shock and slowly began to walk towards Yang, her eyes fixed on the golden gauntlet and the mysterious box labeled "Beacon."

Based on the way his parents were both collectively losing their minds, Olive had a feeling that this box labeled "Beacon" wasn't going to be full of his school supplies.

"Olive, c'mere," Yang said, beckoning Olive to her. Yang practically thrusted the dusty old book in Olive's face before he grabbed it with his right hand and peered at the title: "The Man with Two Souls."

"You know what this is?" Yang asked.

"Yeah," Olive said. "This was like, one of the first books they made us read in Signal. We had to write up a book report about the allegories-"

"This is how I met your mother," Yang said.

"Wait-what?" Olive replied.

"That's not true," Blake said, followed by warm laughter. "Olive, I met your mother because your she's annoying, not because of some dumb book."

Yang gave a hearty chuckle to this response.

"Come on! I was not being annoying!" Yang cried out in response. "I was just trying to get my baby sister to make new friends!"

"So you decided bugging the girl just reading by herself near candlelight, minding her own business, was the best way to make friends for your sister?" Blake teased.

"No, it was actually Ruby who pointed you out," Yang said. "So don't blame me."

Blake laughed in response. "I remember the first thing Ruby did when she greeted me was to tell me to call her 'craterface,'" Blake said. "I swear, I thought you two were the biggest, most awkward dorks in all of Beacon."

"We were not!" Yang said, a big, goofy grin stretching across her face. "We were just being friendly. If I remember correctly, _you_ were the one being a big-time jerk and basically told us to buzz off."

"Yeah, and I meant it!" Blake said in response. "You're just lucky your sister is too precious."

Yang then turned to Olive to explain. "Auntie Ruby said something cute about fairy tales to your mother after that. I forgot exactly what she said, but it was enough so that Blake actually saw we were more than just some bumbling idiots."

Olive looked on in surprise as Blake and Yang both burst out laughing.

"Is this…" Olive began. "Is this...a box of all your guys' stuff? From when you went to Beacon?"

"Bingo!" Yang cheered. "Glad you finally put two and two together, kiddo-"

"Yang, look at this!" Blake said, pulling up a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"No, no," Yang said while laughing, "Put that back in the box. I don't ever wanna see those again."

Blake turned to Olive, a cheap grin stretched across her face. "Do you know what Yang would do with these? Every time we had to drop out of a dropship for a mission, Yang would always, _always_ put these on, wink at me, and then jump out of the dropship. And every time she hit solid ground, she would always yell out 'Nailed it!' like some big doofus."

"Hey," Yang said, "Not true-"

"You know what the best part is?" Blake said, giggling. "Your mom would say that the glasses were part of her 'landing strategy.'"

"_Ooo_kay, Blake!" Yang said, snatching the glasses away as her face turned red as a tomato. "I thought I told you to never tell anyone about that."

"Ma," Olive said, turning to Yang, "what's a landing strategy?"

Both Blake and Yang burst out laughing at Olive's innocent question.

"You'll learn at Beacon soon enough," Yang replied.

Both were startled by Blake's gasps. The two of them whipped around and found Blake holding a box full of silky, black ribbons. Blake was holding one of the ribbons in her right hand.

"Oh, no way!" Yang said. "I never knew you had a box full of them."

"I used to have them arranged in neat little piles in my closet in the dorm," Blake said, smiling. "I never let you or Ruby see, 'cause I knew you guys would tease me."

"Come on, did you really have that low of an opinion of us?" Yang replied. "Y'know, I wonder how you'd look with a bow nowadays, now that you got short hair."

"I dunno," Blake said, feeling her bob. "If I wore one today, it'd probably be more of a fashion statement."

"Mom, why do you have so many bows?" Olive asked.

Blake sighed. "Well, it's kinda hard to explain, honey. Back then, it wasn't safe for faunus like us. So, I had to hide my ears," Blake said before tapping her cat ears. Her cat ears instinctively began to twitch.

"Why wasn't it safe for us back then?" Olive said, a confused look on his face.

"There were a lot of stupid people in the world," Yang quipped. "Dumb people who hated faunus just for being what they were."

"It wasn't easy growing up as a faunus," Blake continued. "Luckily, your Grandpa Ghira and Grandma Kali changed all that. You're lucky that nowadays, people will see you for what you really are deep down - a handsome, nice young man."

"Ma, come on," Olive muttered, blushing. "Can you try not to sound embarrassing for once?"

"You hear that, Blakey?" Yang said, grabbing Blake in a loose headlock and rubbing her head. "Your own son thinks you're embarrassing too."

"Cut it out!" Blake said, giggling as she pushed Yang off her.

"You know, I'm gonna be embarrassing too right now and say that your mother looked ten times cuter with the bow," Yang said.

"Shut up!" Blake said, slapping Yang's shoulder playfully. At the same time, Olive felt that if his parents acted any more corny, he'd probably die from embarrasment.

"Hold on, hold on! Let me finish!" Yang was able to get out as she raised an arm to block Blake's attacks. "I was gonna say that she looked cute with the bow...but she looks like the strongest, most beautiful woman in the world without it, when she's not afraid to show the world who she really is."

"Aww, you…" Blake cooed before wrapping her arms around Yang's shoulder. The two of them brought their heads close together, each of them staring intently into each other's eyes.

"Hey, guys?" Olive croaked out. "I'm right here, you know?"

"Sorry, honey," Blake said, before pushing Yang away and fixing her hair with a blush still painted across her face.

Olive rolled his eyes before turning his gaze back to the box. On top were sets of school uniforms with ketchup and mustard stains on it.

"Were those your school uniforms?" Olive asked.

"Yes, they were," Yang said. "We absolutely _ruined_ these ones. And it was all thanks to team JNPR."

"Wait a minute, were those the uniforms from the food fight?" Blake asked.

"Take a guess," Yang said as she unfolded one of the suit jackets, which was stained with a myriad of different-colored splotches. "Olive, have we ever told you about the time we almost blew up the school with food?"

"With food?" Olive asked incredulously.

"Darn straight," Yang said, a glint shining in her eye, almost like she was proud of it. "Only the forces of team RWBY and team JNPR combined could accomplish such a feat."

"Yang, you got no right to talk about that fight," Blake interjected. "Nora launched you out of the roof halfway through using a watermelon, and you didn't come back down until after Glynda broke us all up."

"Auntie Nora?" Olive said, with shock in his face. Did Auntie Nora really send his mother through the roof, all with a piece of fruit?

_Actually, no, that makes sense,_ Olive thought to himself as he remembered Auntie Nora's...exuberant...personality, every time he saw her at family gatherings.

"Hey, at least I was doing my part!" Yang whined in response to Blake's argument. "What did you do the entire time to contribute?"

"Uh, excuse me, I was holding my own against Pyrrha!" Blake spat. "She almost took my head off with a baguette."

"Pyrrha?" Yang replied, shocked. Olive saw Yang's face begin to drop a little, her smile fading ever so slightly. "Yeah, Pyrrha, that's right."

"Only Pyrrha could put up such a good fight," Blake said too before her jovial expression began to fade as well.

Olive had only heard this "Pyrrha's" name here and there, and whenever an adult would bring up her name, they usually got really serious, sort of how his moms were right now.

"Come on, what else is in here?" Blake said, perking back up before pulling out a big scrapbook.

"_Ooooh_, boy," Yang said. "I am not ready to look at these."

"Why not?" Blake teased.

"You know that I looked ten times worse at Beacon than I do now," Yang replied.

"Oh, don't be a crybaby," Blake said. "I wanna see for myself how dorky you used to look."

Blake flipped open the scrapbook to the first page. On it was a picture of a young, blonde girl with pigtails and a band-aid on her nose, a tall man with shaggy blonde hair, and a brunette woman with red highlights and a white cloak. The woman was holding a tiny baby in her arms.

"Is that…" Olive began.

"That's me!" Yang said. "And Grandpa Tai, and...Grandma Summer. With Ruby."

Olive knew Grandma Summer died long before he was born. Even Auntie Ruby and Yang didn't know her very well. Still, it was kind of jarring to see how much Summer looked like Auntie Ruby.

"You were a cute kid, Yang!" Blake chimed. "What happened to you?"

Yang muttered and lightly ruffled Blake's hair as a response to her jab. Blake flipped to the next page. The next few photos were all of a dormitory room.

"This was our dorm, Olive," Yang said.

"Are those...bunk beds?" Olive asked, spying the shabbily made bunk beds held up by twine and books.

"Yes. Oh, this reminds me," Blake said, grabbing Olive by the shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes. "Don't ever, _ever_ let anyone talk you into making bunk beds in your room when you get to Beacon. You don't know how many times your mom almost killed me because she was screwing around on the top bunk."

"It's more like you just have poor craftsmanship, Blake," Yang shrugged. "I coulda rigged together a better bed than that."

"Shut up, I'm being serious," Blake said, before turning to Olive again. "You got it, boy?"

Olive silently nodded. Blake smiled in satisfaction, then playfully cupped her hands over Olive's cheeks before Olive grimaced and brushed her hands away.

"Mom…" Olive whined.

"Look at this!" Yang cried out. The two crowded around Yang to see what she was excited about. The photo Yang was looking at was team RWBY in a noodle stand called A Simple Wok.

"Oh, this must've been at the Vytal Festival!" Blake said. "Ugh, I miss their seafood bowl so much…"

Yang flipped the page to reveal a series of photos at what looked like some sort of school dance. Pictures of Auntie Ruby, Weiss and Uncle Ren dancing all lined the pages.

"Is this the school dance?" Blake asked.

"Course it is!" Yang replied. "You remember you weren't gonna go?"

"Yeah…" Blake said, her voice trailing off. "I probably wouldn't have if it weren't for Sun…"

Yang began to laugh. "Do you remember the cheap suit and tie he was wearing that night? I think he wore jeans too-"

"Hey, cut him some slack," Blake said. "I'm pretty sure I've only ever saw him in that dumb white jacket of his, at least he had the common sense to change into something nicer."

Blake and Yang both burst out laughing at Sun's expense. At the same time, while the two were cackling away, Olive found a picture of Blake and Yang in the middle of the dance floor, grinning ear to ear, seemingly dancing the night away.

Olive couldn't help but smile to himself, feeling warm inside at the way the camera captured this tender moment between his parents.

The three of them spent the next 30 minutes or so flipping through the pages of the photo book, reliving the glory days of a dragon and a shadow. Pictures of team RWBY training, posing with team JNPR, field photos from their first mission to Mountain Glenn were all on display for Olive, with his mothers giving their best (if biased) recollections of their memories.

It was almost surreal for Olive to see his parents in this new light. Blake and Yang have always just been his mothers to him, not one-half of one of the most prolific huntress team to come out of Beacon.

Olive was able to pick up the differences in appearance between his parents' older selves in the photos, and the ones that currently stood next to him. Blake's hair was longer then, wearing the aforementioned bows in all the photos. Yang still has her long, golden mane from the photos, but Olive found Yang had her real right arm in all of them, not the prosthetic.

Still, Olive found that, save for a few wrinkles picked up over time, Blake and Yang still had the same radiant smiles on their face as they did in the photos, their golden and lilac eyes captured beaming with hope and passion the same way it still does today.

The minutes quickly flew by before they realized what time it was. Grandpa Tai honking the horn outside quickly snapped the three out of their brief excursion into nostalgia. It was suddenly back to reality, and Yang was helping Olive carry down boxes of all his knick-knacks and supplies he would be bringing to Beacon, while Blake finished packing Olive's backpack full of food for him and Grandpa Tai to eat on the trip to Vale.

* * *

"Hey, do me a favor, old man," Yang said after loading the last of the boxes into the trunk of the car. "Don't drive like a maniac, alright?"

"Come on, Yang, I'm not your sister," Tai said. "I take it _niiiice_ and slow. Just like everything in life."

Taiyang was definitely starting to show some of his age, his hair starting to grey and his face beginning to wrinkle. Still, it was comforting to Yang to see the same grin he always used to flash her and her sister as they were growing up on Patch.

"Okay, well, don't take it too slow now," Yang said. "He still needs to make orientation in time."

As Yang finished speaking to Tai, Olive was walking out the door, clad in jeans and his favorite mustard-yellow hoodie, his mop of messy brunette hair hanging over his eyes and his tail dragging behind him. Olive was wearing a neutral expression on his face when he came out, but the facade quickly melted when he saw grandpa Tai.

"Hi, Grandpa Tai!" Olive cried out, beaming.

"Hey, there he is!" Tai bellowed. Tai embraced Olive with a bear hug. "Ready to go kick some ass in Beacon?"

"Language, Tai," Blake said as she walked out the house, greeting Tai with a smile.

"Sorry, Blakey," Tai returned. "Hey, what's that?"

"Some spam musubi and cold cut sandwiches for the drive up to Beacon," Blake said, gesturing to the food in her right hand. "Just in case you or Olive gets hungry."

"Oh, Blake, you shouldn't have," Tai said.

"No, no, it was nothing," Blake responded as she handed Tai the food. "Besides, I know the first thing you guys are gonna do is stop off at some gas station and pick up junk food and candy, so I'd rather you guys eat something healthier."

"Aw, Blake," Tai said with a defeated smirk, "You know me too well."

Tai then threw open the driver's side door of the car, preparing to hop in.

"Alright-come on, kid! Say goodbye to your mothers, then let's hit the road!" Tai cried out.

Before Olive could respond, Blake had put her right hand on his shoulder and kissed him on his forehead.

"Listen - be safe, okay?" Blake said. "Your mother and I love you so much."

"I love you too, Ma," Olive responded before he pulled his mother in for a big hug.

Yang came in next, wrapping her arms around Olive in a hearty, squeezing hug full of pats on the back, followed by a quick peck on Olive's cheek.

"Hey, no partying, no alcohol - at least not on the first day," Yang said. "Don't slack off in your classes either - don't be like me in your first year."

Olive nodded. "Got it," he said, resolute.

"I love you so much. Oh, and uh...tell us if you make friends with any cute boys or girls over there, okay?" Yang said, flashing a grin.

"Mom, come on!" Olive cried out, his face rapidly turning red with embarrassment.

Blake and Yang watched from the front porch as Olive climbed into the car with Tai, waved goodbye from the passenger-side doorway, and sped off from the house towards Beacon Academy. Blake was leaning her head against Yang's shoulder, her arms wrapped around Yang as both of them peered into the orange glow of the sunset, long after Olive had left.

"He's gonna become so much stronger than any of us," Blake said.

"You think?" Yang said as she gazed down into Blake's eyes, before turning back to the sunset.

"No, you're right," Yang said. "That kid - he can change the world if he wants. He's got your good heart - and my dashing good looks," Yang said with a smirk.

"No, no," Blake said, laughing. "He's got your drive, your determination."

"That's probably from his Auntie Ruby," Yang said. "His temper, though, that's all me."

Blake laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Y'know, looking at all the stuff from Beacon...it really made me remember all the hard times that came after, you know?" Blake said, her face hardening. "After the school fell."

"Yeah," Yang muttered in a low voice, clearly remembering as well.

"We fought hard, Yang," Blake said. "We fought so hard."

Yang nodded in agreement.

"And...I'm so glad we did," Blake continued, "because now we have something to look forward to."

"What's that?" Yang asked, turning to Blake.

"A future. A future for us..." Blake said, placing her hand gently on Yang's upper chest, right where her heart is, "...and for him."

Blake and Yang stared out into the sunset, knowing that somewhere down the road, Olive was beginning his journey to blaze his own trail.

"You got a way with words, Belladonna. You know that?" Yang teased. Blake flashed Yang a bright smile in return.

"Whaddya say I order us some ramen for dinner from that new joint in town?" Yang offered.

"You read my mind," Blake said. "Get me the seafood bowl, please?"

"Obviously," Yang purred as she lead Blake back through the front door of the home they made for themselves.


End file.
